Swedish PM seeks to win Turkish support for NATO membership

ANKARA, 09 November 2022, (TON): Sweden’s new prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a bid to clinch Turkish approval for his country’s bid to join NATO.

Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied for membership in the military alliance after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, fearing that Russian President Vladimir Putin might target them next.

But Turkey, which joined NATO in 1952, has been holding off on endorsing their bids, accusing Sweden and to a lesser degree Finland of ignoring Ankara’s security concerns. Erdogan’s government is pressing the two countries to crack down on individuals it considers terrorists, including supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and people suspected of orchestrating a failed 2016 coup in Turkey.

Turkey also has called for the lifting of an arms embargo imposed following its 2019 incursion into northern Syria to combat Kurdish militants.

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